


Monster welcoming party

by Sephypsycologist



Series: Surface Indulgences [2]
Category: Undertale (Video Game)
Genre: Gen, undertum - Freeform
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-12-21
Updated: 2018-12-21
Packaged: 2019-09-24 06:31:38
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,488
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17095595
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Sephypsycologist/pseuds/Sephypsycologist
Summary: Sans doesn't really trust the humans, but he's not turning down free food. His brother is a lot more open to things.





	Monster welcoming party

It wasn’t….satisfying, is the only word that comes to mind. So long underground, and now suddenly, no food shortage, no decaying ambient magic, no more queen Undick.

He really shouldn’t speak ill of the dead but….hell, Sans didn’t care anymore. It was her fault he was like this anyway, half blind and nursing that accursed itchy wound in his skull.

But that was over now. And now…

Oh stars.

Now he could eat something….he had seven years of nothing to make up for.

–

It was just a courtesy, really, something to do to keep the monsters in one spot and hope to God that this would satisfy them after…Papyrus was it? you didn’t remember, but it was the tall skeleton with the very crooked smile…Crooks, that’s a sort of cute name for him. Maybe if you gave them cute names they wouldn’t scare you so badly.

But Crooks was their leader, seemingly, and he said they’d been in a severe food shortage for seven years. So the government had sanctioned this…buffet of sorts for them. Really, you knew, you shouldn’t expose the starving to such large amounts of food at one time. At least in humans, they might overeat to the point of bursting their stomachs or vomiting, but you weren’t sure if that worked with monsters or not.

The doors were unlocked and you smiled nervously at the dazed, awed crowd of creatures stumbling in. “All the food on the tables is for you. Take as much as you need to feel satisfied, and we’re having places set up for you all to feel at home.”

You were pretty sure some of them were looking at YOU rather than the food as they drooled black, but….no one hurt you. Crooks had been very clear that he’d ordered them to leave humans be now that they were on the surface. You wondered what they’d done to others underground, other than…the one obvious thing. If the one-armed, frightened child who had burst out before them was any indication, nothing good.

But your eyes were on the skeletons. Crooks had a brother, it seemed, and he was….shocking to say the least. His shirt and coat were covered in dark brown stains that were clearly blood, and the single light in his skull was glowing from a socket beneath a massive break. You shuddered to think what it would feel like to survive a wound like that.

But he wasn’t moving, despite his taller brother pushing him around (literally, Crooks had his hands behind his brother’s back and shoved him around the room as he cooed over the generosity of ‘THESE SURFACE HUMANS’). No, he….he was just staring. At the food.

And then he bolted right past you into the frenzy of monsters that had happened when they’d spotted the feast. Some of them were fighting each other over various things, but all that stopped as soon as the skeleton jumped in. Everyone else froze as if a panther had entered the room.

You heard whispers of “sans” and realized that must be his name. Oh geeze…Papyrus….Sans. Comic Sans. You tried not to let out a nervous guffaw as the joke hit you.

But Sans was in no way funny. The intensity of his stare as he shoveled items onto a plate and directly into his mouth was truly scary.

“AH…MY BROTHER IS, EM, NOT EXACTLY RESPONSIBLE FOR HIMSELF AT THIS POINT,” came the forceful, but regretful voice from beside you. As the human ambassador to these creatures, you squeaked but turned to respectfully address Crooks as he had silently approached you.

“Your Grace, I-”

“NO. I AM SIMPLY THE MAYOR,” Insisted the tall skeleton as he leaned almost 90 degrees to be on level to talk to you (he was still taller than you). “BUT I DO UNDERSTAND YOUR CONCERN. SANS WAS ALWAYS IN LOVE WITH FOOD BUT…THE SITUATION WE FIND OURSELVES IN HAS MADE THAT HARD. HE DIDN’T EAT FOR THE WHOLE TIME!”

Your jaw drops. “That…how?! Oh….oh I’m sorry, that was rude, but….” How could ANYONE survive that?

“I DO NOT KNOW, BUT IT IS BECAUSE OF HIM THAT WE YET LIVE.” Crooks straightens himself jerkily and beams his crazy smile, “AND NOW HE CAN FINALLY HAVE HIS FILL. I’M GOING TO MAKE SURE EVERYTHING IS ORDERLY FROM NOW ON BEFORE INDULGING MYSELF. FEEL FREE TO TALK TO THE OTHERS, AND COME SAY HI TO SANS WHEN YOU’RE FINISHED WITH THAT!”

Even though that was not an order, you feel like you can’t disappoint him. So…you begin to walk among the tables, meeting those you are supposed to help represent your species to, and in return them to your own kind.

—

“SANS, REALLY, YOU SHOULD SLOW DOWN.” Papyrus worriedly insisted, using his considerable strength to wrench his brother’s hand away from the plate. “I KNOW, BELIEVE ME, BUT YOU’LL MAKE YOURSELF SICK GOING SO FAST.”

It took all of Sans’ willpower to listen. He just…it was there! Real food, not crazy human flesh food. Food he could let himself eat.

And then he noticed how little was on his brother’s plate.

“paps. why aren’t you taking advantage of this?” his red eye glowed and made a strange spotlight on the meager portions.

“AS MAYOR, I CAN’T LET MYSELF TAKE WHAT OTHERS MIGHT NEED.” Papyrus said this like it was obvious, but it just made Sans angry. Still, he pushed it down and sighed.

“everyone else has huge helpings, bro,” he gestured, and was indeed correct. there was hardly a scrap left on the tables that had been heavy laden before. “you deserve a lot more than that.”

“I….BUT SANS, I,” the towering figure looked almost at the verge of tears as his voice dropped to a whisper, “I don’t want to be like her, though, Sans.”

If she wasn’t already dust, he’d murder that fish bitch. “you could never be like her, paps.”

“I also thought I would never hurt anyone, once,” Papyrus murmured.

“stars, paps….” Sans felt his shriveled soul squeeze painfully. “we survived, though. pap, we lived through it. and now it’s over. it’s over.”

Nodding, Papyrus began to pick at his food. Sans realized he’d have to feed him to make his brother eat properly. “c’mere, bro. lemme help.” At least he wasn’t going to let Papyrus hurt himself.

—

You finally finished making rounds. None of the monsters really had wanted to talk to you, but a few had made nervous small talk. You’d seen one of them, a plant like creature, lick its massive teeth as you talked with those nearby. You shuddered.

But as you approached the skeleton brothers at their table off to the side, you stopped. Sans was feeding his brother off his own plate, and had a worried furrow in his brow bone. Papyrus said something, and Sans replied back, completely focused on him. There was a nod and a few more forkfuls before Sans sighed and said something else. You could already tell the food had helped from the whiter shine of Papyrus’ bones and the reduction in the dark grooves under his sockets. It made your whole body ache to think they’d needed this so badly. They were terrifying, and some clearly murderous, but there were still PEOPLE under all that. And clearly, despite his earlier behavior, Sans loved his brother. And Papyrus loved him in return, as the massive skeleton hugged the smaller tightly before jumping up and screeching, “I MUST BE AMONG THE PEOPLE, SANS!”

That left you watching him go as you drifted closer. Papyrus had looked…healthy. Instead of the scraggling, worn, brittle bones you had seen, the femurs and ulnas had thickened, his movements more fluid and the bounce in his step less frantic. “He’s doing better already…” you say aloud, not noticing where you were.

“even humans can see. amazing,” came the dark, rasping voice from the table.

You jumped and turned, meeting Sans’ smirk, his single eye light half lidded, “so you’re our ambassador. that’s hilarious. i’m sans, sans the skeleton. nice to meat’cha, pal.” He offers his hand, but Papyrus had already warned you on one of your first meetings to never shake his brother’s hand.

“Charmed,” you give him a friendly smile and dip your head toward him. His smirk quirks just a little higher, and he puts his hand away.

“heh. well, it’s nice of you humans to feed us like this. i’d almost wonder why, though. you know what we did down there. what kept us going. so why?” His crimson socket bored into your eyes, and your smile fell.

“Because you guys aren’t the only ones to end up…eh….as humanitarians, when things got desperate. As a human website says, ain’t no party like a Donner party,” you cringe at the joke, but…it was all you could think of to break this tension.

Sans blinks a few times, then laughs. It’s a harsh, unhinged kind of laughter, but there’s genuine enjoyment in his smile for once. Even you can tell he’s the type to keep on a fake grin. “i gotta hand it to ya, that was a good one. ‘humanitarian’. i’ll have to remember that one.” He’s about to say something else, but you hear his voice catch in his….eh, throat? Well, it got stuck somewhere anyhow. “what are they doing over there?”

He’s looking at the table, where the empty plates are being refilled, “Um…well, this is for all of you guys so we planned to have several rounds of food sent out. This is round two, in case anybody wants more.” You turn back only to find him gone. It makes you feel happy to know you held a conversation with the monster every other monster seemed to be wary of.

—-

Without Papyrus to ground him, Sans went to town. There was just so much and something primal was forcing him to go as fast as possible. Probably desperation. But even with this fervor taking over him, he could tell he was about to hit his limit. There was a time even this much would’ve been no problem for him to eat and then keep going….but there were so few memories left of that time that it seemed like a dream.

He cleared the plate and sat back in his chair, breathing heavily from the quick pace he’d been at and from the pressure under his shirt. Even as baggy as the garment had been on his bare bones, it was now tight and constricting, as was the band of his shorts.

The beginnings of exhaustion were settling over his mind, getting to the point it took a touch on the shoulder for him to realize Papyrus was next to him. “SANS, YOU LOOK DAZED….AND VERY SATISFIED! I THINK I SHOULD TAKE YOU BACK TO THE SETTLEMENT NOW.”

Sans groaned at the prospect of being jolted by his brother’s gait, but honestly walking was not happening right now.

“NO COMPLAINTS, LAZYBONES. LET’S GO,” Papyrus picked him up easily and cradled him like a baby, walking surprisingly gently out of the room.

–

You watched the brothers exit and blushed a bit. They were so sweet with each other, and you honestly hoped to spend more time with both of them in the future. Out of all the monsters you’d met, Crooks and Sans were the ones who seemed most…at themselves. Everyone else was too quiet, too skittish, too tense at all moments, but those two seemed only just shy of normal.

And you had to admit, you wanted to know what they were like when they weren’t in public.

–

Once back in his own bed (or at least the cot that had been provided by the human government in the temporary housing for the refugees from the mountain), Sans lost his shirt, tossing it into a corner. He tugged his shorts down to rest lower on his hips, finally sighing as the uncomfortable pressure subsided. It had been seven years since he’d been able to actually see his stomach, and now that he could, it was hard to recognize. It used to be blue, as did the rest of his magic, but now it was that same angry red as the light in his eye. He wasn’t sure if that would ever go away, but gosh it was so small, even as tight and heavy as it felt.

Fingers sliding carefully over the hot surface, he gently pressed on himself. Yeah, it was tight as a drum, but barely more than rounded out. He supposed he should have guessed this would happen, wearing the smallest clothes he owned for so long that he forgot what his body used to be like. But stars it felt good to be this full again, not empty to the core and losing his mind, blanking out in bouts of hunger and having to entrust Papyrus to bop him over the head with a femur to get his sanity back…well, what little he had.

A soft sigh slid out of his mouth, and Sans let his mind wander, feeling the swirl and burble under his phalanges as matter became magic. This was….nice. It felt familiar and safe, being like this.

Maybe soon it wouldn’t be such a rushed thing, either….

Next time he’d try to take his time and enjoy it rather than acting like a rabid dog or a scavenger, just bolting down his food as fast as he could to keep others from stealing it.

—-

Papyrus huffed slightly. As much as he appreciated Sans and his efforts to make sure he ate properly, he really should have stopped him sooner.

The tall skeleton removed his battle body (ah the memories….they hurt) and peeled the black body suit beneath off himself. There, that felt better. He quickly put some pajama pants on to be decent but he couldn’t bring himself to get a shirt just yet.

He could actually see his magic for once. Usually, being as active, energetic, and downright desperate for food as he was, there was nothing but his elegant spine between his ribs and pelvis but….there was a sickly orange coating clinging like a moldsmal between them now. It almost hurt, but was just on the bearable side of things now that his restrictive clothing wasn’t on.

Blushing softly, he lay down on his cot and wrapped up in his blankets. The warmth helped, and now he was just slightly sleepy. Sleep was a great ally in conserving food stores, so despite his misgivings about lying in bed doing nothing, Papyrus had learned to accept it. And now that he wanted to sleep because he was comfortable instead of starving, well….he was soon letting out soft snores as he cuddled into his pillow.


End file.
